aquietjune

I had a rather busy week at the beginning of February, but I’m glad I can now sit down for some updates.

I made my LARP costume(s) work in the end. Managing a few looks circa 1850s in less than a month wasn’t easy, nor cheap (even if I didn’t have the time to go for the real expensive options), nor devoid of continuous rumination, but all is well what ends well.
I also managed to score a very very nice shearling coat at a thrift shop nearby. Considering the freezing cold we’re experiencing these days (one should day: thank heavens) it comes in handy for my daily life too. It’s so, so warm <3
Now on to working on my next costume (this time it should be easier—1980s.)
The LARP itself was fantastic, I had a lot of fun. It wasn’t a life-changing experience like other games are but I wasn’t looking for such a thing: rather, I’m happy I got a rich, always-engaging experience both in game and off game, meeting a lot of new interesting people along the way.

Lots of very interesting conversations around stories on the road trip to the game, in fact. Two interesting points:

Experiencing a story is an encounter and (hopefully) a conversation with its author. When such a story is an adaptation from yet another story, I get how the encounter can go very wrong—you expect to have one specific conversation, maybe, but then maybe the author of the adaptation is speaking another language altogether. It’s not that you just disagree on a vision; you cannot communicate at all.
There’s a joy in sharing stories with others that cannot be subjugated to the workings of the cultural industry. I see this in fandom, but I really felt it listening to a fellow player talking about her live readings of stories for friends. Once, I felt that joy too. I wish there could be the chance to do that and not care about how our very soulless literary scene tries to turn everything into a product to sell, a hope to sell to poor aspiring writers, or an outlet for publicity. How dull, how sad, how absolutely disingenuous.

Having said this, some updates on my writing:

I managed to finish the January chapter of my Annie fic only yesterday, but that is fine; I needed the inspiration for this very small scene that was missing and now I feel satisfied.
The planning/plotting/outlining of the story however still has much left to be desired, in the sense that I need clarity although I already know the 80% of the events that are going to play out and how they’re going to play out.

In other stories:

Feeling a bit melancholic about Part 3 Cour 1 of Attack on Titan Final Season airing on March 3rd and being “only” one hour. I want for the anime adaptation to be done but I was really looking forward to anime original content and I fear there isn’t going to be much of it.
I admire the skill and the visuals and even the eeriness of the story but I can’t seem to be able to get into Copenaghen Cowboy by NWR for now.
Oshi no ko is killing it with the latest developments. I’m really hoping for this streak of very tight narratives to continue.
Spy x Family also had a couple of really good chapters recently.
This month I’m trying to get back into more challenging literature, fiction-wise. Non genre, non linear, no classics—at least it makes me curious, let’s see how it goes. I started a new book between yesterday and today; among other things, it's a book about maps; I will talk about it if I stick to it.

In the next few days I hope to catch up with comments & posts. In the meantime, thanks for reading.